After a long standing back and forth, the apex court has finally ruled an indefinite extension on the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar linking. The date was earlier set to March 31. The Supreme Court says that the government cannot insist on providing Aadhaar, even to issue Tatkal passports. As concluded by the five-judge bench of […]

After a long standing back and forth, the apex court has finally ruled an indefinite extension on the deadline for mandatory Aadhaar linking. The date was earlier set to March 31. The Supreme Court says that the government cannot insist on providing Aadhaar, even to issue Tatkal passports.

As concluded by the five-judge bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices AK Sikri, AM Khanwilkar, DY Chandrachud and Ashok Bhushan, there will be no deadline issued until the judgment on linking Aadhaar is pronounced. However, the deadline for subsidies, benefits will remain March 31.

The issue of the mandatory Aadhaar linking has been under scrutiny for a while now, and multiple application for the extension of its deadline have been applied and approved in a few instance.

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Last month, the supreme court rejected a plea, which sought a deadline for seeding Aadhaar to a host of services, such as banking and mobile phones, beyond March 31. The plea was set on the grounds that the process of the mandatory linkage of the 12-digit unique identity number would not be completed by the end of next month.

Meanwhile, the central government continues its efforts of making Aadhaar the primary identification proof for every citizen of the country. Recently, a draft notification by the government to amend rules for driving licenses proposed Aadhaar as one of the documents that can be submitted for address and age proof.